If you don’t know, a the Universal Basic Income proposal (UBI) is the idea that every adult citizen would receive an amount from the government every month.

Before you jump to the conclusion that this is wildly impractical, too expensive, and that Yang is not making a serious, thought-out proposal, you should listen to the conversation.

Yang’s basic premise is that automation and technology advances will continue to eliminate mid-level jobs throughout the developed world – and in the U.S. in particular. This is not a development that will be stopped by Trump-like proposals to return to a past that is not going to return.

The vast majority of industrial jobs have been eliminated by automation – not by shipping them overseas (although some have moved because of that). And this trend is going to accelerate. To ignore it, or do nothing about it is foolish. Not surprisingly most politicians have no credible ideas on how to deal with this problem.